The Joy of Fulfillment — It Turns Out the Naming Rights! Membership Option Was For Real and Someone Is Now Five Hundred Bucks Poorer Presents Nat

I am currently deep into the process of fulfilling the crowd-funding campaigns for both The Weird A-Coloring to Al/The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition and The Joy of Trash.

To give you a sense of what a massive undertaking both of these projects entail, at this point I have sent out two hundred copies of The Joy of Trash and one hundred copies of The Weird A-Coloring to Al and I still need to fill sturdy yellow packages with roughly three more hundred copies of The Joy of Trash and one hundred copies of The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition.

I’m sending out The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition last because it understandably takes Amazon a very long time to print high-quality, full-color hardcover books. I ordered a bunch of copies of The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition a month ago and they still haven’t arrived. That should change in a few days, however, and I am VERY excited about sharing the Colored-In Special edition with the world.

So even though I have devoted an extraordinary amount of time, work and energy into getting my books into the hands and homes of the lovely people who pre-ordered them, I am still less than halfway done.

That should be both daunting and dispiriting. There are many many depressing aspects to this particular stage of crowd-funding. First and foremost, it’s expensive as fuck. The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition in particular is extremely expensive to make.

When a crowd-funding campaign is funded, it is the best feeling in the world. People believe in you! The masses love you! You have fans, actual fans who are willing to support your dreams and your ambitions with cold hard cash! You get a nice chunk of money without having to put up any cash of your own! You’re living the dream, baby, making the fucked-up modern world work for you.

Eventually, however, you need to deliver on everything you’ve promised patrons. Ideally the expense of printing up books is offset by a giddy rush of sales on Amazon and your website. So even though you’re spending a great deal of money printing books and sending them to patrons, a sizable amount of money is coming in as well.

That, alas, has not happened with either The Joy of Trash or The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition, both of which did very well in crowd-funding and very badly since being published.

That does not feel great. In fact it feels quite poor! Looking back I probably released both books at the worst possible time, when the world was on vacation and no one, but no one, seemed excited about self-published books from unemployable Juggalos, no matter how hilarious or brilliant.

I’m in a very fragile emotional state right now. It’s very easy to lose faith in yourself and your abilities but what helps me sleep at night and gets me through anxious, uncertain days, other than the love of my family, and devout Mormon faith, of course, is signing books and putting them in packages and sending them out to patrons.

At the risk of being Pollyannaish, when I look at a package with The Weird A-Coloring to Al or The Joy of Trash in it, I think to myself, “This has the capacity to make someone very happy.”

That is a beautiful thing! I could not be more proud of my books. I know that writing and reading them have certainly made me happy. It can be easy to feel like the world does not care about you, your books, or your voice when a new project underperforms the way The Joy of Trash and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition have.

But when I open up Backerkit and see the hundreds upon hundreds of orders left to fulfill I am reminded, in the most satisfying, concrete manner possible, that The Joy of Trash and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition have already experienced substantial success. They’ve already found a receptive audience. They’ve already sold hundreds of copies to my most dedicated and loyal fans, fans who stick with me book after book after book and make it possible for me to continue to be an author.

Obviously I would like these wonderful books to sell a lot of copies after being published, preferably through my store, but I derive no small amount of satisfaction and solace from knowing that hundreds of people pre-ordered my book and are excited about that halcyon day when it will show up at their front door.

It’s similarly easy to feel irrelevant and unwanted when you put out a book that feels culturally invisible but putting my books in packages and then sending them out serves as an essential, life-affirming reminder that I am relevant and wanted and important, that I do fundamentally matter.

Executing the final step of the The Joy of Trash and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition crowd-funding campaigns is fulfilling in more ways than one.

THE JOY OF TRASH IS OUT!

Buy The Joy of Trash, The Weird Accordion to Al and the The Weird Accordion to Al in both paperback and hardcover and The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition signed from me personally (recommended) over at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop

Or you can buy The Joy of Trash here and The Weird A-Coloring to Al here and The Weird Accordion to Al here

Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace

Alternately you can buy The Weird Accordion to Al, signed, for just 19.50, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here.